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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

#780: Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is – as most of you know – the socialite
founder of Huffington Post.
Despite other potential virtues, the Huffington Post’s attitude to science,
especially in their health and well-being sections, is more than questionable;
indeed, Huffpo is an abysmally shameless pusher of pseudoscience and woo,
including anti-vaccinationism, Deepak Chopra-style altmed garbage; and self-help articles most of all reminiscent of
The Secret.
Luminaries who have written for the site include self help guru and
pseudo-“Native American” spirituality rip-off peddler James Arthur Ray (to be covered); John Morton, current spiritual director of the new-age group
John-Roger's Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness; altmed loon Andrew Weil;
as well as homeopath and internet troll Dana Ullman (see this,
for instance). Reasonable people have thus repeatedly called for a boycott,
and there is a good discussion of Huffpo’s preference for bogus claims about
medicine over reality here - Huffington herself says that “[w]hen it comes to health and wellness issues,
our goal is to provide a diverse forum for a reasoned discussion of issues of
interest and importance to our readers.” Or, in other words, the Huffpo will
not try to distinguish the correct from the wrong or even crazy, instead trying
to promote a false balance.

The thing, of course, is that – like Oprah – Huffington
herself is a big fan of such matters. She is, for instance, a longtime follower
of John-Roger's MISA, and the dreadful piece “A Personal Case for Homeopathy” by Judith Acosta was published not only in Huffpo but on Huffington’s own blog.
When Huffpo’s new science section was announced she presented it in a manner
that is, well, rather revealing with regard to how she views science:
“Rather than taking up arms in those misguided, outdated battles [between
science and religion], HuffPost Science will work in the tradition of
inquisitive minds that can accommodate both logic and mystery,” Or in other
words, they will continue to push new-age woo and disregard that boring notion
of trying to align their claims with reality. Which of course is exactly what they did.

Diagnosis: A severe threat to life and well-being,
Huffington’s views may not be among the most extreme, but like Oprah she has
enormous influence, which she unfortunately misuses in the worst possible way.
Extremely dangerous. Boycott Huffpo as much as you’d boycott the WND.